


Visual Notes

by the_dragongirl



Series: Sketches [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artist!Obi-Wan, Artists, M/M, This is still a canon AU I promise, mentions of human trafficking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-17 00:02:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10582227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dragongirl/pseuds/the_dragongirl
Summary: Qui-Gon encounter a spy in a market-place while investigating a sentient-trafficking cartel. Or so he thinks.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PunsBulletsAndPointyThings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunsBulletsAndPointyThings/gifts).



> Written as bribery for Puns, to incentivize prepping for her final exams. This takes place in a largely unwritten universe, in which Qui-Gon never met Initiate Kenobi, and Obi-Wan ended up leaving the Agricorps and becoming at artist, for Reasons.

The spy had been watching him for over half an hour now.

Qui-Gon Jinn, Master of the Jedi Order, sighed in annoyance. Admittedly, the sentient-trafficking cartel he was here dismantle had proven fairly unsubtle in their attempts to ascertain the true identity of “Jesnik Paa”, the small-time spice runner Qui-Gon was posing as during his investigation. This, however, took unsubtle to a whole new level. The spy wasn’t even really bothering to disguise his surveillance! He sat openly at one of the outdoor tables in a particularly cheap and grimy tapcafe, a cup of their truly revolting excuse for caff lying forgotten at his elbow. His eyes hadn’t left Qui-Gon once through his wanderings in this dingy marketplace, and he’d openly scribbled his observations down in a cheap flimsiplast notebook the whole time.

At first, Qui-Gon had actually been amused by the spy’s audacity. And it had seemed harmless enough, letting him bring word of “Paa’s” shopping expedition back to his employers. But by now Qui-Gon’s patience was just about at an end. This investigation had already dragged on far longer than he’d planned, with almost every low-level criminal too frightened by the cartel’s reputation for ruthlessness - or else too financially invested in the cartel’s success - to share information with an outsider. And now his one contact who was supposedly willing to talk had failed to show up to their scheduled meeting (or maybe just opted not to reveal themself, with cartel’s spy watching so closely), which left him once more at a dead end in tracking down whoever was actually running this operation, and getting off this forsaken backwater of a world.

Well, nearly at a dead end. If the spy was going to scare away Qui-Gon’s actual informants, then he was just going to have to fill the role himself. Whether he wanted to or not.

Qui-Gon had let the natural flow of the market crowd carry him close to the tapcafe’s seating area. Now he darted over to the spy’s table, and seized him by the wrist.

“You can stop playing this game now. Tell me who you’re working for!”

“I...what?” The spy looked up at him with wide, startled eyes. He was, Qui-Gon noted, rather lovely for a hardened slaver. Human, probably, with red-gold hair pulled back in a low braid, and the kind of bone structure that one usually saw in holonet adverts. Younger than Qui-Gon, though hardly a youth. The eyes that stared up at him were an unusually bright shade of green-blue, the color of oceans on untouched forest planets. He was also, Qui-Gon realized from the feel of that sharp-boned wrist under his hand, painfully thin.

 _Bantha shit_ , Qui-Gon thought, rapidly adjusting his assessment. This wasn’t a hardened criminal, working for sentient trafficking ring and getting fat and wealthy off of the suffering of others. If he was involved at all, it was more likely as one of their victims, implanted with a sub-dermal explosive, and set to working intel while they found a suitable buyer.

Then something in the man’s expression seemed to shift rapidly, going from shock, to to understanding, to horror, and then straight on to embarrassment.

“You think I’m...that they...oh no, you’ve got it all wrong! I’m not with the Kal’eska, either willingly or otherwise.”

Qui-Gon looked down at the man quizzically. How had he known what Qui-Gon assumed? He was a Jedi, trained for this kind of undercover work. Surely his expression hadn’t given that much away...

Realizing that he was still holding onto the man’s wrist, Qui-Gon let go, and took a half-step back, so as not to loom over him. “If you’re not working for them, then why were you watching me?”

The man blushed, then placed a hand over the notebook on the table, looking down at it. “I...umm...I’m an artist, you see.”

Qui-Gon glanced down at the notebook as well. The page was not, as he had assumed, filled with the encoded short-hand that the Kal’eska seemed to favor for their communications. Instead, the page showed a series of rapid sketches. The crinkle of an eye in a smiling face. The shape of a profile, glimpsed from slightly behind the subject. A mouth, quirking upward in smirk. All of them were beautifully executed. The were also all recognizably images of Qui-Gon himself.

“You...have a rather fascinating appearance,” the man continued, running a hand over the page. “I wanted to capture it. Most people don’t take well to me stopping them on the street and asking them to model for me, though.”

Then he paused, and looking up a Qui-Gon. He cocked his head a little, as if listening for something. Then he smiled, and lowering his eyelids just a little.

“Though I get the feeling that might not be the case for you. And I have a place not too far from here, if you might be willing to model for me a little more, mmm...privately.”

It didn’t take a Jedi’s intuition to hear that the invitation was for a good deal more just sitting for a portrait. And the man really was breathtakingly lovely…

Qui-Gon reached out to the Force, trying to feel if this was a trap, or just an unexpected pleasant distraction. Instead of a mild reassurance, however, or even a vague warning of danger, he found himself blind-sided with a sudden wave of approval from the Force, telling him to go, to follow this beautiful stranger wherever he wanted to lead.

Qui-Gon blinked. “I think...that I would rather like that.”

The man smiled. “Excellent.” He stood, collecting his notebook, and tossing a credit chip on the table. “In that case, might I have your name?”

“It’s...umm...Jesnik,” Qui-Gon blurted, still trying to clear the ringing of the Force out of his head.

The man raised an eyebrow. “Is it?” Then he reached out and took Qui-Gon’s hand, rubbing a thumb distractingly over the palm. “Well, ‘Jesnik’, my name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Shall I lead the way?”

Wordlessly, Qui-Gon nodded. Obi-Wan smiled, and set off towards one of the smaller side-streets branching off from the market square, leading Qui-Gon behind him.

Well, Qui-Gon reflected, _this_ certainly wasn’t how he’d expected to spend this afternoon. Then he shrugged. It’s not as if he was making any actual progress in his investigation anyway. And if the Force was to be believed, his day was about to get very interesting indeed.


End file.
